First . Don't. Second : use CentOs.
You need a stable server. With stable packages. Fedora 17 uses even alpha packages in Samba.
CentOs is way way way way way more smart. But off course if you are not afraid of failure and a lot of tinkering then Fedora is brilliant.
All services you want to set up is described quite good here in this forum. Just search and everything you need will be revealed.

Second, "we don't have a clue of how to do it or what we need" is a good indication that you probably shouldn't be the ones to handle this project.

I do use Fedora at work, but I use it on my workstation. I absolutely WOULD NOT under ANY circumstances, use it on a server. Not only because it is unstable and has a tendency to break at any random update, but also because it has a very short support life of only 12 months. When you put a lot of time into rigging up a server, you definitely don't want to be redoing it every year. In a production environment, you can't afford either downtime or reconfiguration nightmares.

If you do end up using Fedora, you'll DEFINITELY lose your job over it.
If you do this project with CentOS, you MIGHT lose your job (as a result of not knowing what you're doing).

Second, "we don't have a clue of how to do it or what we need" is a good indication that you probably shouldn't be the ones to handle this project.

That's what I said when they put me on this, but they want me to learn the hard way, and don't wanna pay for someone external who really knows about it.

So, we are stock in this, but Fedora came to us because of one guy on our offcie that knows how to "administrate" the services with fedora, but guess what, he hasn't a clue of how install all the services.

I've been reading some documentation of Fedora, and shows how to install all that I put in this question. So, I guess I will try it on a virtual machine or my on laptop, and see how it works, and if it likes what they see, I guess I install it on the server. But I will warn them about all you are saying.

So hopefully this works, beside the office is only 15 people tops, so it's not a lot of people who will depend of the server, so I'll give it a try and see what happend.

Finally, you're saying that if I choose Fedora or CentOS i will lose my job. So, which distro should I use to start learning about it?..

That's what I said when they put me on this, but they want me to learn the hard way, and don't wanna pay for someone external who really knows about it.

So, we are stock in this, but Fedora came to us because of one guy on our offcie that knows how to "administrate" the services with fedora, but guess what, he hasn't a clue of how install all the services.

I've been reading some documentation of Fedora, and shows how to install all that I put in this question. So, I guess I will try it on a virtual machine or my on laptop, and see how it works, and if it likes what they see, I guess I install it on the server. But I will warn them about all you are saying.

So hopefully this works, beside the office is only 15 people tops, so it's not a lot of people who will depend of the server, so I'll give it a try and see what happend.

Finally, you're saying that if I choose Fedora or CentOS i will lose my job. So, which distro should I use to start learning about it?..

Thanks for the answers.

It will end in failure. You need allot of time to manage just one service properly.
And again. Don't think Fedora when you speak about servers. CentOS is it!!!!!! Got it?
Do you know anything about hardware? TCP/ip? Routers? Firewalls? Its ok to not know just as I do not know allot about allot. In your case. BEWARE!!!!!

It will end in failure. You need allot of time to manage just one service properly.
And again. Don't think Fedora when you speak about servers. CentOS is it!!!!!! Got it?
Do you know anything about hardware? TCP/ip? Routers? Firewalls? Its ok to not know just as I do not know allot about allot. In your case. BEWARE!!!!!

Well, I know some stuff about all that you say, I'm not an expert neither. And I will try to convince the people around here to use CentOS, but I get back to the same problem, where can I find some documentation or tutorial about what we need to do???...

There are tutorials available to set up a fully-functional server on CentOS, Debian, Fedora (up to Fedora 15), Ubuntu. I've been running a couple email domains and low-volume public websites on a fedora 15 ispconfig3 server for over a year now with no hiccups to speak of.

There are tutorials available to set up a fully-functional server on CentOS, Debian, Fedora (up to Fedora 15), Ubuntu. I've been running a couple email domains and low-volume public websites on a fedora 15 ispconfig3 server for over a year now with no hiccups to speak of.

Thank man, I'll check it on it.

Actually, I found a tutorial about it but with Fedora Core 7, and one with Fedora 12 or 14, and I reading them. So thanks for the page, and hope this works, either with Fedora or CentOS.

Despite all the scare mongering above, you certainly can run a server with Fedora. You just need to be cognisant of the short support cycle. Fedora and these forums are very well suited for learning about servers.

When you run a server with a short support cycle / unstable version of Linux, the trick is to install everything you think you need, get them all updated, make sure they still work - then turn the automatic updates off and do not update the machine again - just keep using it as is - that will keep it stable. This is perfectly good for a noncritical machine running on a LAN.

the trick is to install everything you think you need, get them all updated, make sure they still work - then turn the automatic updates off and do not update the machine again - just keep using it as is - that will keep it stable. This is perfectly good for a noncritical machine running on a LAN.

I have a friend that does just that with success. He uses Fedora versions that are a couple of versions older than of today. He will probably not update them before new hardware is on its way.

I have a friend that does just that with success. He uses Fedora versions that are a couple of versions older than of today. He will probably not update them before new hardware is on its way.

and leave every security hole open...

Remember Backup, Backup and oh yes Backup

Then start from the ground up, not with services.

What happens if a hard disk fails? Does the 'server' have a hardware raid etc.
What happens if a network fails? Bonding? Routing tables and/or subnets for clients?
What happens if the server fails? failover etc. or another box you can just turn on to take over?

Well, I know some stuff about all that you say, I'm not an expert neither. And I will try to convince the people around here to use CentOS, but I get back to the same problem, where can I find some documentation or tutorial about what we need to do???...

Any help??

Same place as you would find for Fedora you will find for CentOS.

CentOS is effectively STABLE FEDORA with up to 13 YEAR security update cycle.
Fedora is UNSTABLE with up to 13 MONTH security update cycle.